A Hagrid Thought

[Eric Oppen]

No: HPFGUIDX 54538

It occurs to me...could a lot of the giants' bad reputation in the Wizard
World come, not so much from an evil nature, as from the combination of
great strength and toughness combined with an utter lack of common sense?

Many giants in folklore were portrayed not so much as evil monsters as big,
well-meaning if approached right, and _very_ dumb.  Being stupid is bad
enough when you're normal-sized, but when you're twenty feet tall,
incredibly strong and clumsy, and all but impervious to most things that can
hurt normal-sized people, stupidity is terribly dangerous.  To them.

Let's face it, Hagrid is portrayed pretty clearly as not the sharpest knife
in the Wizard World's intellectual drawer, and often displays a breathtaking
lack of common sense, even as a young student at Hogwarts.  Of all the pets
he could have had, he got a giant spider that could easily have killed other
students, and when wrongly accused of causing the death of another pupil,
apparently defended himself so ineptly (he could have pointed out, among
other things, that the body did not show evidence of having been attacked by
a giant spider, and possibly forced Aragog himself to testify that he hadn't
done it) that he was thrown out of Hogwarts, and only saved by Dumbledore's
intervention on his behalf.

Later on, he repeatedly shows a short temper (his sheer size and
near-invulnerability should have been all he needed when dealing with the
Dursleys, and slamming Karakoff, a full-fledged wizard, around was...a
_tad_... ill-thought-out, shall we say) and very little common sense.
Starting new pupils out on something as dangerous as a hippogriff,
particularly with a known trouble-maker and his cronies in the class, was
Not Smart, although there are arguments in its favor.

Could Hagrid's giant ancestry be showing when he does things that almost
anybody would say are badly thought-out, as with Norbert the Norwegian
Ridgeback?